


Holotape Night

by AshsHorrorShow



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Feelings, Fluff, Introspection, M/M, Movie Night, Nostalgia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 14:31:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16410230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshsHorrorShow/pseuds/AshsHorrorShow
Summary: After watching a few holotapes, Arcade thinks seriously about his childhood.





	Holotape Night

Arcade Gannon never understood why Six had an affinity for exploring random buildings. At best, their explorations of such places would lead to them scrounging up a few bottle caps, stimpaks, and bottles of purified water. At worst, they were facing mutated creatures so horrific-looking they made deathclaws look like cute puppies in comparison. And unfortunately for them, finding such creatures, or at the very least, unpleasant people, was much more common. How they weren’t dead now was beyond him. Hell, they _wasted_ half of their found stimpaks trying to survive these experiences half the time. 

Sometimes though, they wouldn’t find hidden treasures or mutants. Instead, they’d just wander around some dusty, dilapidated pre-War building that was completely void of anything interesting. 

In his mind, it just wasn’t worth it. But whenever he tried to talk sense to Six, he was only left feeling like he was trying to argue with a brick wall. Six would just insist that Arcade needed a sense of adventure and that they were making memories. Every time, Arcade was always left wondering if the bullet that hit Six had scrambled the courier’s brain a little too much. But then again, Arcade still always reluctantly went along with whatever crazy misadventure Six suggested, so maybe he was no better.

Thankfully, the building they were wandering in now was one of the boring, safe ones. It was an old schoolhouse. It was obviously a pre-War building, given it’s utterly decrepit state. Not that the current buildings that got used in the Mojave were exactly architecturally great, but at least Arcade could walk on the floor of most of them without feeling like it was going to collapse out from under him. Most of the time, anyway.

But despite how piss-poor most of the conditions in here were, some things actually managed to keep somewhat intact, protected by a thick layer of dust. Arcade admired some of the old posters and devices in the building. 

Unfortunately though, as far as anything useful went, there was nothing in this place. The place had obviously been found by others before them and pilfered through by Fiends or other characters, judging by the occasional sleeping mats or empty Med-X needles he found lying around. The most Six had managed to find was a measly five bottle caps. Not exactly enough for a good meal. Arcade sighed, glad he and Six always made sure to bring food with them. 

They were about to give up ever finding anything good, Six lamenting about his bad luck, when suddenly, something caught Arcade’s eye. 

“Is that a projector?” he asked, excitement creeping into his voice.

“Hm?” Six asked, looking at the machine that Arcade was indicating. Then shrugging, he said, “I dunno. Admittedly, I’ve never seen one myself, so I couldn’t exactly tell you.” 

Arcade approached the machine curiously and began wiping the dust on it to inspect it closer. Excitement beginning to take over, Arcade exclaimed, “It is! I haven’t seen one of these bad boys since I was a kid.” He was giddy.

Six clearly didn’t understand why he was getting so excited, but supportively, he leaned down and said, “Does it work?”

Reality suddenly hit Arcade hard and he deflated just a tad, saying honestly, “Probably not.” This thing was only God knows how old and chances were it ran on electricity, which this building most definitely didn’t have anymore. 

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to try, right?” Six asked with a shrug. He pressed the button on top of the machine and Arcade was genuinely surprised when he heard the machine begin to whir to life. When the light formed on the chalkboard across from them, Arcade felt his elation grow again. 

Looking at Six, he asked, “Do you think they’d have holotapes here?”

Six shrugged, “Maybe. I think they would be in the desks over there.” He nodded towards the large desk across the room, which was probably intended to belong to a teacher. Arcade nodded and walked over to said desks. Rex padded close behind, no doubt to see if he could sniff out tasty morsels from the contents inside the desk. He’d already seen the dog munching on random bugs crawling around in the school. 

After a few seconds of rummaging, Arcade was surprised and delighted to see that there were indeed holotapes. Most of them were educational in nature, but he saw a couple of fictional ones in there as well, some of which he recognized.

Turning to Six he said, “We’re spending the night here.”

Six nodded and grinned, “Holotape night?”

Arcade nodded immediately.   
\--------------------------------

Arcade was lying on the dirty sleeping mat they had found, watching as the protagonist of the film he was watching struggled to escape from a death trap he had gotten himself caught in. The scene was an intense one, but it had kind of lost it’s stakes since he had seen this film probably a hundred times when he was a kid. 

Six and Rex were long since asleep, Rex snoring somewhere above Arcade’s head and Six lying on Arcade’s stomach. Rex had fallen asleep as soon it went dark, seemingly not interested in movie plots, but Six had actually stayed up for a surprisingly long time. Arcade had been delighted to see Six enraptured in the same clips that had given younger him a thrill. Apparently, Six had never seen a holotape in action before, not even in Vegas, so it was a whole new experience for him.

And seeing Six’s reactions was more amusing than the films themselves had the time. Six staring wide-eyed at the screen and cheering the protagonist on. At one point, Six had even jumped to his feet, so involved in the action he was.

Arcade had only intended for them to watch one holotape that night, but they wound up watching three holotapes whole and were now on their fourth. 

Unfortunately, this one had ended up being Six’s downfall. The courier had tried to fight against his drowsiness, but eventually, he lost, and now he was asleep.

Arcade knew he should probably go to sleep himself. It was rather late after all. But for some reason, he couldn’t find himself feeling drowsy, too wrapped up in his thoughts. Too wrapped up in memories of his childhood.

He always liked to remember his childhood somewhat fondly, thinking of his mother and books and holotapes. But it wasn’t only great. There had been a lot of things wrong. 

He had never gotten to meet his father. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. Why would he work for the Enclave if he was a good person? But then again, why had any of the Remnants? Their past and his current ideals still caused him trouble at times.

His mother had been kind and sweet, but always ill. She was bedridden most of his life.

He had to constantly be on the move or fleeing for crimes he never committed. 

He had to live in secrecy even now, just for baring the same name as his father.

He never had a place he could call home. 

No… life hadn’t always been easy. It was part of the reason he liked books and holotapes. It was not only an escape from his real life, but it let him see adventures of people who were perceived as ordinary, but went on grand adventures and did heroic things. That even when the odds were stacked against them, they managed to succeed and get a happy ending. 

And as cynical as he had become over the years, he still found meaning in a message like that. 

He looked over at the Courier. He still wasn’t sure how he would react when Arcade told him about his past… _if_ he told Six about his past… but he hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as some of the possibilities Arcade thought up. Because he liked Six. He really did. 

He felt like he didn’t have to hide most of himself from Six, that Six liked him anyway. And even though Six was crazy and reckless at times, his adventurous nature and heroism was admirable to Arcade. This little adventure they had gone on so far would be enough to fill any holotape movie… and it was still continuing. 

Six made him feel like it was possible to be a hero. 

That maybe things would work out for him and the Mojave in the end.

He could only hope that was true.

**Author's Note:**

> Just something that came to my mind. 
> 
> Also, I don't care what anyone says... but one of Arcade's favorite holotapes is probably like some Indiana Jones-esque shit. 
> 
> As always, critique is wanted and if you see a mistake, feel free to point it out!
> 
> Have a great day!


End file.
